With regard to infant safety, although cribs with protective siding and the like exist for accommodating sleeping infants, cribs generally do not lend themselves to easy portability, especially when traveling by plane or crowded automobile. When an infant-safe bed such as a crib is not available, there is always the possibility that an infant may need to be put down for a nap or even a full night's sleep on a regular mattress without protective siding. This can require an adult to sleep with the infant through the night to ensure that the infant does not roll over the side of the mattress and sustain a fall and subsequent injury, which would likely result in very little sleep for the accompanying adult. Alternatively, in the absence of an infant-safe bed, a child may have to be placed on a pallet on the floor for sleeping to eliminate the possibility of a fall, which may ultimately be uncomfortable and may consequently mean very little sleep for the infant.
Additionally, child safety can be a challenge when transitioning a toddler from a in infant-safe bed to a regular mattress. For a child not accustomed to a bed without safety boundaries, multiple falls from the bed may be incurred before the child becomes trained to stay a safe distance from the edge of the mattress during sleep. Further, older children, people with disabilities, and older adults may also incur the possibility of falling from the bed if they lose or are unable to acquire the instinct that prevents them from tumbling over the side as they move about during sleep.
Free-standing safety rails may be purchased for use with a regular mattress and generally vary in the means by which they may be attached to the mattress. Some of the more commonly available safety rails includes flanges that may be inserted between a mattress and box spring to hold the safety rail in place so that it extends a given number of inches upward beyond the horizontal surface of the mattress to prevent falls. Use of this safety device with heavier children or children who are extremely active during sleep may result in lateral displacement of this kind of safety device and subsequent falls.
Moreover, if a child were to land atop the dislodged safety rail, further and more serious injury could result. Additionally, because most currently available safety rails are constructed of rigid materials, a child who inadvertently rolls into the rail while sleeping may be injured. Depending on the design of the safety railing, it is possible that a child may even become entangled in the railing, another situation that may cause the child to be hurt.
While many of the safety rails currently available are shorter than the mattresses to which they are to be attached (permitting a child to get into and out of bed by going around the railings rather than climbing over them), children may view the railings as a toy and may be tempted to climb over them when entering and exiting the bed, thereby increasing the potential for falls and injury. Finally, most commercially available safety rails are not aesthetically pleasing and typically prevent one from making the bed fully without removing the safety rail altogether. Installing and removing the rail repeatedly can be both cumbersome and time-consuming.
Elongate bolsters and pillows are also available for use as potential safety devices to prevent falls from a bed; however, these can be easily ejected from the bed by even the slightest child, resulting in a loss of any protection against falls that such an item might have afforded. While some versions include straps by which the bolster or pillow may be attached to a headboard and footboard of a bed, every bed does not include a headboard and/or footboard by which to attach such a device. Moreover, there is a possibility that even an attached bolster could be displaced to allow a child to slip underneath the bolster so that a fall results.
Portability is yet another issue with most commercially available safety devices. Free-standing rails are cumbersome to pack and carry, and neither bolsters nor pillow-type devices of any appreciable size can be easily transported from one place to the next when traveling.
What is therefore needed is a safety system which is affordable yet completely portable, easy to assemble and/or dissemble, aesthetically integrable, and consistently reliable at deterring the occupant of a bed/mattress from falling over the edge of the mattress while sleeping. The ideal safety system may include a sheet having pockets or sleeves on one or more sides into which soft or semi-soft side guards may be inserted. The side guards may extend a given distance above the top surface of the mattress to create a barrier on one or more sides of the mattress which may serve to deter an occupant of the bed from rolling completely over the edge of the mattress should he/she migrate near the edge of the mattress during sleep.